


Sky High Confessions

by DarkenedHeart



Series: Loving Jack [1]
Category: MacGyver (TV 2016)
Genre: "I love you" is said., Jack is poisoned!, Lack of important Tags., M/M, MacGyver 2016, MacGyver loves Jack., NO detailed 'MacGyvering', OOC, Vague Mission Stuff, Vague usage of intelligence.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-06
Updated: 2016-11-06
Packaged: 2018-08-29 09:13:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8483734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarkenedHeart/pseuds/DarkenedHeart
Summary: When you're a spy, everything is secret. Nothing is more sacred than a spy's secret.When you're a spy, you live for your work and your country. You don't have time or the luxury to live for yourself.Until the man you love almost dies, again, and you can't hold back anymore. When you're faced with mortality to such a degree that you literally watch the love of your life's breathes come in and out in desperate gulps of air. And there is nothing in the world you can do for him.---Jack is poisoned on a mission to recover a deadly toxin. Emphasis on deadly. With his life slowly ebbing away, Mac won't allow the lies he tells himself to remain any more.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This isn't very original and most likely very "Really? You're going with THAT?" - But I don't care.....

When you're a spy, everything is secret. Your real name, your real occupation, some times even your real likes and dislikes.  
Nothing is more sacred than a spy's secret.  
Which is why emotions are the biggest problem for someone in a spy's line of work.  
Because you have to learn to lie to yourself in order to not show what you're feeling.  
You have to convince yourself that you aren't head over heels in love with the man standing by your side. You have to clamp down on every desire to take that man into your arms to kiss him senseless and see if you can make his chatty mouth gape in shock.  
When you're a spy, you live for your work and your country. You don't have time or the luxury to live for yourself.

\--- - --- - --- - --- - ---

"Remind me again why we get all the super dangerous missions?" Jack whispers harshly to Mac as the blonde agent picks the lock to the compound they were sneaking into.

"Covert opps go better when they remain 'covert', Dalton," Thornton tells her agent evenly as she watches from headquarters, Riley sitting by her side typing wildly on her computer.

"It'll be an easy in and out," Mac remarks as the lock falls free in his hands. He pockets the paperclip with a wink to his partner and eases his way through the fence. Jack follows quickly behind.

"Okay, guys," Riley speaks up next. "Your shadow of darkness is coming right up in 3...2...1!"

The compound goes dark and the two agents sprint to the nearest building.

"How long do we have till the bad guys get their lights back?" Jack whispers as his partner hacks the key pad.

"About thirty-no, make that seven seconds.

"Seven?" Jack hisses in exasperation as he glances at the blonde worriedly. "You'll get that in four, right?"

"Working on it," Mac grumbles as his fingers quickly un-tangle and re-tangle wires.

"Work on it harder."

"Not helping."

"Two seconds guys," Riley cuts into the banter as she watches the system reboot form her side of the world. "Time's up!"

"We're in!" Mac breathes out as he and Jack pant from the other side of the door. They can see the outer lights shining in through the small window above their heads.

"Cutting it close but," Jack turns a grin to the blonde. "Man, do I love it when you pull through, kid."

'Love it, not love you,' Mac nods to his friend, forcing his mind to move to his next target: The guards. 

Then: the safe, the virus, escape.

A nudge has Mac's eyes darting to his partner.

"Bogey at 3 o'clock," Jack nods his head in the direction. "Number count?"

"Four," Mac answers.

"I'm only reading three," Riley corrects over the comms as the older agent approaches the guard using the shadows for cover. "Guy four must be out having a smoke break."

Jack knocks the guard out with a butt of his gun to the man's head. "Great, in and out faster. My kind of mission."

Mac rolls a small metal ball towards the two guards sitting by a small table, it instantly disperses the sleeping gas before fully reaching them. One man sniffs the air and says something in another language, arm going up with his weapon as he aims it at invisible enemies. His buddy face plants to the table, the one who got up falling to the ground moments afterwards.

"That really worked?" Jack grins when he sees the two down. "I thought that only happened in cheesy spy films."

"Jack, your entire life is probably snippets of cheesy spy films and clichés," Riley jokes over the comms.

"Jealous," the agent quips back, leading the way to the awaiting safe. 

 

The two agents go through one more security door and a plastic curtain before stepping into a refrigerated section and finding the regular, grey safe sitting in the center.

"You know the code to that thing?" Jack asks his partner, pointing at the dial with his weapon.

"Yup," Mac walks over to the safe and takes the door off at the hinges using set of heavy duty pliers.

"That'll work," the older agent shrugs as he helps his younger partner move the heavy door out of the way. Inside, there are three vials, all neon green, none of them labeled.

"Woah, I thought there was just ONE missing bio weapon," Jack remarks as Mac readies the containment canister.

"That's all that was reported," Thornton confirms. "Why? How many are there?"

"Three," Jack answers as Mac puts on gloves. "They're not labeled. Are they supposed to be labeled? How do we know what we're taking home?"

"I doubt they have a vaccine against whatever this stiff is, Jack," Mac grimaces as he carefully eases the first vial into the special container. 

"I'm more interested if they have an antidote," his partner comments as he walks over to the plastic curtain to check for unexpected visitors, gun drawn. "You think you can put those away any slower?"

"Only one left," the blonde remarks as he places the second vial in the container.

Jack sees the shadow before the man. He lunges for Mac as the fourth gunman swings around the safe to shoot at the blonde. The final vial falls from the blonde's fingers as the older agent shoots at their enemy, killing him.

"You okay?" Jack asks as he gets off his partner.

"The vial," Mac looks around for the item, hoping his body was enough to stop the glass from shattering.

"Oh, crap."

Ice floods Mac's veins as Jack lifts his hand. There are glass shards in the man's palm, specks of green dripping with the red as the other man holds the appendage away from his partner.

"Why do these things have to happen to me?" Jack grumbles as he moves away from Mac.

"What? What happened?" Riley asks, worry clear in her voice. "Guys, I've got nothing here. Your heat signatures are shielded by the refrigerator room!"

"Jack's been exposed to one of the vials," Mac explains as he whips out a bandana to wrap the wound. Jack pulls the injury away from his partner.

"No need to get you cut too," Jack explains as he holsters his weapon to reach for the bandana. Mac hands it to him.

As Jack tends his wound, Mac uses his pocket knife to cut a patch of cloth from his clothes to get a sample from the spilled vial; he puts it in an empty pocket in his belt.

"We can't leave any trace of this stuff behind," the older agents remarks, hand bandaged. "You got a way to torch it?"

Mac nods, plan already forming as he locks the other two vials down. He looks at his partner, "How are you feeling?"

"Like my hand's been cut open over something stupid," Jack remarks sarcastically. He walks over to the plastic curtain as he pulls his weapon back out with his unwounded hand and checks for more enemies. "We're good, we should go."

"Okay."

Mack sets the rest of the vial on fire and the two escape the compound while the remaining bad guys shout and try to stop the minor inferno.

 

\- - -

 

The two agents make it back to the air strip and are on their way back home without any more troubles.

Once they're in the air, Mac forces Jack to properly clean the wound and re-bandage it. His partner does so without any real complaints and afterwards they sit side-by-side on the small plane with no other passengers; both of them hoping for the best.

 

One hour passes.

One hour of a possible salvation attainable.

If they could get back before the toxin affected Jack, they could get their hands on an antidote. Better yet, maybe it was a dud.

As the first five seconds of hour two ticks forward, a drop of sweat rolls down the side of Jack's face.

"Just nerves," the older agent jokes as he wipes the moisture away, his cheeks flushed. 

"Jack..." Mac turns in his seat to look closer at his friend.

Jack gets up to walk away but his partner pulls him back down; too easily.

"What are you feeling?" Mac demands to know as he puts a hand to the other man's forehead. Jack's skin is so hot to touch the blonde pulls his hand back immediately. "Jack! You've got to be running a temperature of at least 102!"

"I've been told by many a lady that I was a fairly hot individual," Jack jokes as he wipes at a new collection of sweat. "Gonna need a towel if I keep sweating like a dog, though."

Mac gets up and goes for the tiny room where the galley would be for larger aircrafts. He finds an empty mini fridge and a few towels. He takes the towels to the bathroom and soaks them in ice cold water. He rings one out and puts it on Jack's face before he puts the others inside the fridge to get even colder.

"Mac, I'll be-"

"You won't be fine, Jack," the blonde interrupts his partner as he takes the other man's wrist to check his pulse; it's racing but strong. "You've been exposed to an unknown toxin. We've got five hours before we make it state side. I've got to make sure you get there."

"Of course I'm going to make it, kid," the older agent laughs. "After everything we've been through, it's only fair I go in a blaze of glory along side you."

'Along side you.' Mac shakes his head of all the images the words bring it. "Right. First thing we've got to do is get your temperature down."

"You don't happen to have some Tylenol on you?" Jack muses, his head lolling to the side. "Don't want to scare you, Mac, but the world's getting a little blurry on my end. How high up are we again?"

 

Mac calls Thornton.

 

"Do we have ANY idea what it could be?" the blonde agent asks angrily from the front of the plane, having just finished a shouting match with the pilots.

"The toxin that was supposed to be there was called X-3PO," Thornton says evenly. "There is an antidote, but it's kept under lock and key."

"Then I suggest you GET that key, because Jack is already sick. His temperature is dangerously high and I don't have what I need to bring it down!"

"I will get the antidote," Thornton adds a touch of command to her tone. "But Mac, you need to understand something."

"What?" the blonde snaps, his eyes glued to Jack's face as it scrunches up in pain before evening out again in sleep. He hadn't realized his partner had passed out.

"The antidote won't do Jack any good."

"What are you talking about?" Mac roars into the phone, startling Jack out of his sleep and sending the cloth covering him to the ground.

"Where are they? I'll shoot 'em!" Jack clumsily tries to lift his gun, but he barely manages to get it out of its holster before it falls from his lax grip. The older agent curses as he stares at the weapon at his feet.

"Those exposed to the toxin only survive an average of four hours after exposure," Thornton finishes, her voice painfully devoid of emotion. "Jack will be dead before we have a chance to get it to him."

Mac's world stops turning. He stares at Jack who looks blankly back at him, his eyes unfocused and face red as sweat shines on his skin. 

 

"We can get it to him."

"Mac-"

"Meet us half way."

"What?"

Mac takes a breath so that he won't shout again, "Get the antidote, put it on a plane, send it to us and meet us half way."

"How do you expect to get the antidote from one plane to the other?" Thornton's voice is as amazed as it is perplexed.

"Let me worry about that," the blonde tells her firmly. "Just make sure the antidote is secured in something that won't shatter it and that the pilot has at least one passenger and a parachute."

"Mac, I need more that that."

"And I need to focus on Jack right now," Mac snaps, angry at himself for letting his calm crack once again. "Please," he forces his voice not to break. "Just...get the antidote ready. Get the plane and everything else. I'll tell you more as I come up with it."

"Very well," his boss agrees. "I'll call back in half an hour. I should have it by then."

"Thank you," Mac hangs up without another word. He walks over to Jack and picks up the cloth from the floor. He switches it for one in the small fridge and returns to his partner's side to place it on his forehead.

"Cold," Jack jokes half-heartedly, his smile a little crooked and tired. He looks up at Mac through his eyelashes. "You doing okay there, Mac?"

'Of all the things...' Mac shakes his head. "No, I've got an idiot for a partner asking stupid questions."

"But he's so good looking," the other agent laughs a little, it turns into a slight cough at the end. He turns another tired smile to his partner, "You can be nice to the sickly, can't you kid?"

"Yeah," the blonde sighs the word as he moves the cloth a little, allowing his thumb to rub at the spot where it was to feel how quickly the cool is overtaken with the heat; it's almost instantaneous. 

"Don't rub away any hair," Jack comments as his eyes droop. "Gotta...Gotta keep what I got...Now....Now that..."

Mac flips the cloth to the cooler side before checking his partner's pulse. It's slow, far too slow. He pushes against the older agent to rouse him.

"No more sleeping for you, Jack," Mac orders him firmly. "If you pass out before I can save you, I might not be able to wake you again."

"Come on," Jack groans, eyes barely fluttering open. "Can't a guy get a little rest? It's good for you when you've got a cold or flu or whatever."

"But you don't have a cold or flu, Jack," the blonde reminds the man. "You've got a deadly toxin that wants to take your life. I'm not going to let it and I need you to do be just as committed."

"Commitment is my middle name," the other agent sighs, turning just enough to look his partner in the eyes. "Not really, but you catch my drift."

 

Mac talks with Jack, trying to keep his partner awake and alert, while simultaneously devising a way to get a package from one aircraft flying to another while they were flying at tops speeds mid-air.

The conversation at first remains neutral, slightly sarcastic, and full of Jack-style humor.

But as the minutes tick by too quickly, the conversation turns more serious.

 

Mac hangs up after convincing Thornton about his plan to get the antidote to his plane. He goes back to his spot by Jack's side and is surprised when a sweaty hand falls onto his leg. His eyes quickly follow up the arm to stare at Jack. 

His partner's color is red where it isn't white. The man's pupils are blown so large, Mac has to use his memory to know what his partner's eye color is. Jack's shirt is drenched into a darker shade than it started as and his chest is heaving upwards slowly, just to drop down in a tired huff.

"I need," Jack huffs a breath. "To tell you," another breath. "Something, Mac."

The blonde shakes his head as he points a finger in his partner's face, "No. No, Jack. We are NOT having that kind of-"

"Mac."

Jack's voice is so small, so weak, such an opposite of the man he really is that Mac can't find the power to keep talking.

"I just want," Jack pulls the cloth off his face weakly and lets it drop onto his chest. "Stupid thing..." He huffs a heavy breath and tries to focus on Mac, "I wanna tell ya," he heaves another breath. "I don't regret anything."

A bout of coughs stops the agent from adding to his weak words and Mac lunges forwards to help ease the process as much as he can. He makes a mad dash to get a fresh, cold cloth, and hates every second he isn't within reaching distance of the other man.

As the blonde puts the fresh cloth on the older agent's forehead, he decides on something. He refuses to think the worst. He won't allow his mind to go to the place no person should have to go.

But if he's going to be faced with yet another near-death experience with the man he loved, he was going to tell that man about what he felt. 

So that when they got through this, and Mac was going to make SURE they did, they could build on that relationship.

Assuming Jack felt the same way.

 

"Jack," Mac rubs at his partner's arm to rouse him. Jack opens his eyes half way and offers the younger man a small smile. Mac swallows his budding fear of rejection to smile back, "I have something important I need to tell you."

"Sure," Jack slurs, blinking slowly. "Wazup?"

"We've been together for a long time now," Mac back tracks a little. He wants to get to the point but he feels something THIS important needs a little bit to work up to it. "We've fought together, bled together, nearly gotten blown up more times than we care to remember."

Jack snorts a little, his head lolling to the side as the cloth shifts under Mac's hand.

"We've talked about a lot of things," the blonde flips the cloth for something to do with his hands. "But there is one thing, one super, ultra, over-the-top secret thing that I have never talked to you about before. Something I need to tell you now."

"Were you a stripper or something?" Jack tries to joke, but the slur to his words and his drooping eyes make it fall even flatter than it should.

"No, Jack," Mac wipes at the man's face with the cloth before pulling it away to hold his partner's face in both his hands. "I love you, Jack."

Jack's eyes open all the way as his flushed face makes all sorts of strange expressions.

"Ya, what?"

"I love you, Jack Dalton," Mac laughs with the words, tears stinging his eyes but he won't let them fall. Not yet. Not until the antidote is flooding Jack's system and the man is on the road to recovery. "I have for a long time but I didn't think I could ever tell you. I didn't know," his voice catches slightly and he clears it. "I didn't know if you'd return those feelings so...So I kept them to myself."

Jack huffs a breath that Mac thinks was supposed to be a laugh.

"S'too bad," Jack murmurs, eyes closing on their own. "Woulda cuddled ya sooner."

"Jack?" Mac frowns as he lightly taps his partner's face. There's no reaction. "Jack? Jack!"

The older agent remains unconscious, his breathing becoming slower. Mac checks the man's pulse and curses a new string of words when it takes too long to find the small thread beat.

 

Mac finishes his 'hook line' that he'll use to capture the falling antidote. There's a low probability of it working. Most people would label him insane for even thinking about it, the math behind it a long formula with too many probabilities that make it too difficult to solve.

But Mac is desperate and hoping more than breathing as the second plane approaches. He gets on the radio with the other craft inside his plane's cockpit and instructs them to go to the slowest they can manage as the antidote-carrying plane moves to the correct position in front of the other plan.

Once they get in position, he checks on Jack one more time. The man is barely breathing but he IS breathing and that's all Mac needs to know to strap his partner down tightly before going to the back of the plane to risk his life.

Mac secures himself to the plane, then opens the door to slide out to the wing with his make-shift 'fishing pole'. There isn't much time, the plan will be losing altitude due to loss of cabin pressure, so every second counts. The pilots of the other plane are instructed to release the case with the antidote and he is going to catch it. There is some give in the line in case he has to leap for it, but the hope is that he can just 'hook it' with the object in his arm. The hook itself is also secured to the plane, in case Mac lets go due to the force behind it falling is too great.

Mac is grateful for the ski goggles he found crammed in the back of a chair. Otherwise, he would have been blind to the man on the other plane signaling him right before letting the package go.

The black bag comes careening towards Mac and the world is a whirlwind of desperate hopes, impossible chances, and a heart heavy laden with unspoken love.

Mac makes contact with the bag, gets his literal hook into the thing, and is forced to let it go when it rips itself out of his arms. 

The agent slides back into the plane as quickly as he can and pulls the hook line in as soon as he's in. The hook is tearing at the fabric, but holding fast and Mac shoves everything in to finally close the door again.

The door fights him but the agent's determination has it closed in moments, his fingers grasping the bag with the antidote desperately as he scrambles over his contraption to get to Jack's side. 

Jack's chest isn't moving anymore and Mac can't breathe. He rips open the bag to get to the black box inside. A pre-filled needle rests against a mound of foam inside the box and Mac puts the thing straight into Jack's arm, pushing the plunger in with the final trails of his hopes.

Once emptied, Mac tosses the needle back towards the box, and shoves everything away to get at his partner's pulse point.

There's nothing and Mac still can't breathe. 

"Come ON, Jack!" Mac shouts at the man, pushing his fingers harder into the other man's flesh. Still nothing. Nothing but the harsh beats of his own heart beating so loudly they're reverberating in his head.

Mac unstraps Jack to move him to the ground. He does CPR on the man, pounding on the other man's chest in time with his own desperate heart beat.

"COME ON, JACK!" he shouts again, tilting his head towards the man's mouth to see if he was breathing yet.

A slight shift of air has him frozen in his spot.

Mac grabs hold of Jack's wrist and holds his breath, tries to feel for another beat other than his own.

Then he feels it. A slightly, thready pulse that is slowly becoming stronger. 

Mac collapses on top of Jack and cries in relief.

 

\---

 

There is an ambulance waiting for Jack when the plane lands. The man is whisked away in seconds, leaving Mac to stare after the sirens as Riley holds onto him tightly.

 

At the hospital, visitors come and go but Mac remains. Thornton uses her influence to allow the blonde agent to remain at his partner's side. Riley is the last to leave, but only after getting Mac to fervently promise to call her once Jack woke up.

 

Mac pulls his chair closer to Jack's side and takes the man's hand in his. Jack looks younger, all the man's laugh lines smoothed out in slumber as he lies in the hospital bed.

"You're going to be okay," Mac tells the sleeping man confidently. "And I'm going to be here when you wake up."

 

\- - -

 

When daybreak shines into the hospital room two days later, Mac is by Jack's side to see his partner open his eyes.

 

"Hey," Jack croaks with a smile. 

Mac quickly gets the other man a cup of water, his hand still holding his partner's.

Jack drinks a few sips before handing the cup back. He looks at their joined hands and raises an eyebrow.

"Going a little fast, aren't we?"

"Not fast enough," Mac jokes with a cocky smile.

Jack laugh, it's weak but somehow the most glorious thing Mac has ever heard in his life.

 

After a few moments of silence, Jack turns a grin to Mac.

"I'm not telling Riley," he says.

"I'll tell her, Thornton, and whoever else you want," Mac instantly agrees.

"Wow," Jack chuckles, his thumb ghosting over the younger man's knuckles. "I think I'm gonna like this side of you, Mac."

"You better," Mac smiles. "Because if we're going to make this a thing. If we're going to be a thing."

"Oh, we're definitely a thing, Mac."

"Then there are parts of me you've never known and will have to get used to."

Jack smiles, "Same here, buddy."

Mac smiles back, as the words he kept locked away fall from his lips, "I love you, Jack."

"I love you too, Mac."

 

\--- - --- - --- - --- - ---

When you're a spy, you live for your work to survive and your country because that is your pledge. But you don't have to sacrifice your entire life.

**Author's Note:**

> I have fallen for this series. It has captivated me to an astounding degree. I love Jack Dalton. The last episode (1x07) had me laughing at the very beginning. I re-watched the scenes before the opening credits four times before I allowed myself to watch the rest of the episode.
> 
> **I am legally inclined to state I own nothing.**


End file.
